Data Science Bowl Algorithm Could Transform Cardiac Care

Each day, 1,500 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with heart failure. And yet, despite decades of medical advancements, assessing cardiac function remains a time-consuming undertaking. Until, potentially, now. The results from a global data science competition – the 2016 Data Science Bowl – could fundamentally transform one of the most important, time-intensive heart assessment procedures. It’s the “gold standard” of heart imaging: the cardiac MRI. Increasingly powerful medical imaging technology generates a detailed picture of the heart. Today’s cardiac MRI is a vast improvement from what patients would have experienced as recently as a decade ago. But after the MRI generates a detailed image of the heart, the process reverts to “manual” assessment by a specially trained cardiologist. The doctor must spend 20-30 minutes reviewing the results before proceeding…